The way things are looking, Raspberry may have finally put out a dev board that easily competes with very low-end/picked-from-the-curb-grade computers, but with modern niceties and dual video output, which may enable virtual marquees.

Northcoast Custom Arcades is proud to announce the latest in our product line. Our new LED Pixel Marquee! Supports animation. Will display the currently selected game (if artwork exists) and you can even customize or make your own images.

There is a new product called the Sinden Lightgun. It allows line of sight aiming on LCD tv's and monitors without an IR sensor bar needed. The developer of the product is amazing! He is very responsive and always looking for feedback from the community about what's important to potential users. Go check out the kickstarter, and if possible, pledge, or get in early on this amazing tech.

Those who couldn't even look at the Raspberry Pi due to its lack of horsepower may be interested in the new Jetson Nano from Nvidia. It's marketed as a cheap AI platform for homebrew/classroom development and even mass production, but it packs a huge punch in terms of CPU/GPU, with half of a Nintendo Switch's worth of graphic cores and 4 GB of RAM powered from 5V. There's also plenty of ports for expansion, a full SDK and proper documentation, being a CUDA product from Nvidia and all that.

It runs Linux for Tegra out of the box, so it's basically emulation ready. Exciting stuff.

I'm going to try to move the forum over to the new server today, Saturday March 9th.

At some point today I'm going to put this forum into maintenance mode, pull a final backup, and import into the new server.

Then I will update DNS to point forum.arcadecontrols.com over to the new server.

And for a lot of folks, that won't work for a while So if you keep coming to the old server (it will say old server and be in maintenance mode), use http://newforum.arcadecontrols.com/ as your link temporarily, which should be working as of now (but isn't ready for company yet).

David Dries has graciously given me permission to host a permanent archived mirror of Cinemarcade, home of the Arcade84 video and other arcade nostalgia goodness. If you are *not* familiar with Arcade84 then seriously you're missing out. Take a look. If you are, then you know how sad it would be to see Cinemarcade disappear from the net. Thanks for the hard work and for letting us keep it alive here Dave!

The server we're on now is on its last legs. One drive is failed and the other is failing. I have purchased a new server and have been migrating things over. It's in "final-beta" stages now and I'm hoping by next weekend to have us all moved over from here to there. I do have nightly backups from here and have a several day old copy of them there now, and will do another "final" transfer of data before shutting this box down.

Right now on the new server:

the forum is online, and upgraded to the latest version of SMF. The messages/etc from a few days ago are there and working. Still a few tweaks to plug ins to work out. Note - please don't try to find the new forum yet, it's going to be wiped and a fresh copy of the most recent database from here moved over there as the last step. It's not hard to find, but the new forum isn't quite ready for company yet.

The files library is back online and updated. I've gotten most of the material online, though a handful of files are missing for now - I should be able to get those restored when I get back to it. You are welcome to take a sneak peek at it if you'd like. http://new.files.arcadecontrols.com/. Remember the logins from that system are not the same as your forum login. They did get moved from the old to the new so if you had an account on them before it should be working there now. Feel free to use this system if you want, I don't think we'll be doing any database wipes/reloads on it, I consider it "done."

Various behind the scenes things that no one but me really saw and had to deal with are almost all rectified. Yay!

Wiki is next on the list to sort out and bring back online.

The old SMF arcade system doesn't appear to be supported anymore Not sure if that's something folks want or not?

I'm one of the contributors to Mamesaver, a Windows-based MAME screensaver which plays random MAME games at at specified intervals. We're super excited to announce the release of version 2.0.1 which, apart from a few licks of paint and a bunch of bug fixes, introduces multi-monitor support, hotkeys, in-game information, customisable fonts, better power management, and better game management.

I run Mamesaver at work and it's a fantastic distraction and really fun to show off games that might have been forgotten.

Mamesaver can be downloaded here, or you can build it yourself. Mamesaver is open source and released under the MIT Licence.

John Goodenough, coinventor of the lithium-ion battery, heads a team of researchers developing the technology that could one day supplant it.Electric car purchases have been on the rise lately, posting an estimated 60 percent growth rate last year. They’re poised for rapid adoption by 2022, when EVs are projected to cost the same as internal combustion cars. However, these estimates all presume the incumbent lithium-ion battery remains the go-to EV power source. So, when researchers this week at the University of Texas at Austin unveiled a new, promising lithium- or sodium-glass battery technology, it threatened to accelerate even rosy projections for battery-powered cars.

“I think we have the possibility of doing what we’ve been trying to do for the last 20 years,” says John Goodenough, coinventor of the now ubiquitous lithium-ion battery and emeritus professor at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin. “That is, to get an electric car that will be competitive in cost and convenience with the internal combustion engine.” Goodenough added that this new battery technology could also store intermittent solar and wind power on the electric grid.

Yet, the world has seen alleged game-changing battery breakthroughs come to naught before. In 2014, for instance, Japanese researchers offered up a cotton-based (!) new battery design that was touted as “energy dense, reliable, safe, and sustainable.” And if the cotton battery is still going to change the world, its promoters could certainly use a new wave of press and media releases, as an Internet search on their technology today produces links that are no more current than 2014-2015 vintage.

So, on whose authority might one claim a glass battery could be any different?

For starters, Donald Sadoway’s. Sadoway, a preeminent battery researcher and MIT materials science and engineering professor, says, “When John Goodenough makes an announcement, I pay attention. He’s tops in the field and really a fantastic scientist. So, his pronouncements are worth listening to.”

Goodenough himself says that when he first coinvented the lithium-ion battery in the 1980s, almost no one in the battery or consumer electronics industries took the innovation seriously. It was only Japanese labs and companies like Sony that first began to explore the world we all today inhabit—with lithium-ions powering nearly every portable device in the marketplace, as well as electric vehicles and even next-generation airliners.

In other words, who better than Goodenough to cocreate the technology that could one day supplant his mighty lithium-ion battery?

The new battery technology uses a form of glass, doped with reactive “alkali” metals like lithium or sodium, as the battery’s electrolyte (the medium between cathode and electrode that ions travel across when the battery charges and discharges). As outlined in a research paper and recent patent filing (of which Goodenough, 94, says more are forthcoming), the lithium- or sodium-doped glass electrolyte offers a new medium for novel battery chemistry and physics.

They find, for instance, that the lithium- or sodium-glass battery has three times the energy storage capacity of a comparable lithium-ion battery. But its electrolyte is neither flammable nor volatile, and it doesn’t appear to build up the spiky “dendrites” that have plagued lithium-ions as they charge and discharge repeatedly and can ultimately short out, causing battery fires. So, if the glass batteries can be scaled up commercially, which remains uncertain in this still-proof-of-concept-phase research, the frightening phenomenon of flaming or exploding laptops, smartphones, or EVs could be a thing of the past.

Moreover, says lithium-glass battery codeveloper Maria Helena Braga, a visiting research fellow at UT Austin and engineering professor at the University of Porto in Portugal, the glass battery charges in “minutes rather than hours.” This, she says, is because the lithium- or sodium-doped glass endows the battery with a far greater capacity to store energy in the electric field. So, the battery can, in this sense, behave a little more like a lightning-fast supercapacitor. (In technical terms, the battery’s glass electrolyte endows it with a higher so-called dielectric constant than the volatile organic liquid electrolyte in a lithium-ion battery.)

Moreover, Braga says, early tests of their technology suggest it’s also capable of perhaps thousands of charge-discharge cycles, and could perform well in both extremely cold and hot weather. (Initial estimates place its operating range between below -20º C and 60º C.) And if they can switch the battery’s ionic messenger atom from lithium to sodium, the researchers could even source the batteries more reliably and sustainably. Rather tha...

Received an email from X-Arcade today that they expect to sell out of their remaining stock of CRT monitors shortly.

"LIMITED CRT MONITOR AVAILABLE

The CRT featured in our arcade machine is no longer in production and we are down to the last remaining inventory. We should be running out by end of this month, so if you wish to own an authentic CRT monitor, please order immediately! We will shift to an LCD once our remaining stock is depleted. No companies are willing to produce any more CRT arcade monitors. First come, first serve."

I've put up a small tool that might aid LCD users to prevent tearing when gaming. We all know CRU can update your EDID settings, but that does not have command-line support. That makes it quite inconvenient to change your refresh rates for every single game you play (especially on MAME).I have created RatRefresh to help with that. It's a simple tool that allows you to update EDID settings from commandline. What can it do?

Quickly switch to a specific refresh rate from command-line

Automatically switch to the correct refresh rate for any MAME game

Allows you to enter refresh rates for any emu / game / application

So this might be ideal for your LCD-powered MAME-cab! Check it out here.

Dear all, after a few months of testing we are extremely happy to release the new clean desuicide / security programing method for Capcom's CPS2 hardware.

This guide is the result of almost two years of work by an small group of arcade enthusiasts to unravel the secrets of the security implementation found in one of the largest and most popular arcade platform systems. Thanks for this work it is now possible to fully preserve any CPS2 systems as original hardware.

Over the coming weeks additional details about the CPS2 hardware internals will be released providing unseen insights into how Capcom implemented security.

I *think* we're up! I'm going to leave the server in maintenance mode for a while, possibly all day, while I make sure we're reliably up and stable and that everything's working. I'm positive there are things that aren't working yet, for instance the wiki. However, the main site and forum appear to be online. Thanks for bearing with me folks while we worked through our outage.

What happened?

The hard drives in the RAID configuration on the old server died, one at a time. We replaced them, but somewhere in the replacing we lost the boot partition, and despite the fact that it should be relatively easy to restore, we could-not-get-it-to-boot again.

Since the server was 4 years old at least, we had already been contemplating upgrading to a new box, so took the time to do so. We still had access to the old server's drives via a rescue boot environment, so migrating was doable.

It took a bit to get the new server online and configured, primarily because I used the transition as an exercise to improve my server administration skills with Linux.

The final snag was the version of the Ubuntu we're running on the new box doesn't support the version of php SMF requires, and SMF isn't upgraded for the new version of PHP yet.

Got that resolved this morning, and now it's hopefully just a matter of troubleshooting various quirks and settings until we get everything resolved.

BIG THANKS to sirwoogie for holding my hand through this process and helping teach me to fish!

Several of you have offered your time or financial donations to help. Thank you, thank you, I very much appreciate it. In the future I won't be shy about accepting offers of expertise.

As for financial donations, thank you for the offers, but please consider donating to charitable organizations or those in need such as relief for the Louisiana flooding victims.

BYOAC/arcadecontrols.com is my way of giving something back to the community. There's such a wealth of knowledge and resources out on the Internet, and BYOAC is my way of being a small part of that. Maintaining the server is within my means, and as long as there's any interest in what BYOAC hosts, I'll continue to keep the server online.

• Automatic script handling.No more need to handle scripts installation! No more need to worry whether an emulator needs a script or not to work, mGalaxy will manage it by itself!• RetroArch added to available systems.• Command window hidden.The command window may now be hidden when the emulator is launched (for systems allowing it, like ‘Mame’ for instance)• Uppercase and lower case rom file extensions are now allowed.• Screensaver/Attract Mode.• Theme switching (Premium).Set one (different) theme per system.• Localization (French, German, Portuguese for now!).• mGalaxy_Runway system creation setup revised.You now drag and drop the system you need (as many instances as you want) to build your system list (this would allow you, for instance, to create 3 different MAME systems!)• Systems window: filtering on arcade/computer/console.• mGalaxy_Runway: box/marquee images support (for themes allowing this functionality).• Scroll speed setting.Let you define the scrolling speed of the list when direction keys are held.• Pre-Launch settings.Allows you to launch another application/script/document before launching game (for instance, to auto load map to ‘Ultimarc Ultrastik 360’)• Child lock (per key/button).When set, the key/button has to be held for 3 seconds to run.• Compatible with every screen resolution (e.g. 640x480px).• mGalaxy_Runway: database creator (with resume functionality).• mGalaxy_Runway: database editor (Premium).• mGalaxy_Runway: data/media export (database, favorites, roms, snaps, boxes, videos).• Multiple monitor support.• Command Help panel.Displays all the actions available and their corresponding key/button shortcut• mGalaxy_Runway: Mame database creation updated

I have decided to open up a project I have been working on for many years... it's abut 80% complete but functional. Basically, in about 2013 I began developing an arcade game rating and review website...

I have put many many (did I mention many) hours in to this project... as well as more than a couple hundred bucks... and it was looking like it would never see the light of day. Basically ... I burned out. For the last year it sat. This year, when the domain name came up for renewal... I decided I was going to put the damn thing online and see where it goes. If it sees moderate success, I will buckle down and complete it.

Essentially all letters have been populated minus the letters S and T. Unfortunately... there are "A LOT" of S and T games. That said, the names are there, just the data within each record hasn't been added. It's a long tedious job... but one I am willing to do if the site is used.

I really think that it could become a useful tool for collectors if we get enough participation from the community. Basically, it will become what the community makes of it.

I am still working on a bug or two that cropped up when multiple people started reviewing, but they'll get handled. I am also open to suggestions, etc.

Feel free to take a look and if you'd like to help the site reach it's potential, sign up and review a few games!

The long-awaited (? ) video game documentary Man VS. Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler is now in wide release. Kickstarter backers of the film were able to obtain a digital copy on Thurs., June 23 with the general public's wide release on Fri., June 24. The movie has previously only seen limited screenings at film festivals since September 2015, winning numerous awards along the way.

The latest film to take place in the world of high score champions on vintage arcade game, Man VS Snake focuses on the story of Iowa's Tim McVey. In 1984, McVey became the first video game player in history to score over 1 billion points of a video game as he toppled Rock Ola's Nibbler in an Ottumwa, Iowa video arcade. For his accomplishment, he was awarded with an arcade game, the key to the city and the first and still-only civic day named in honor of a video gamer.

However, one day in the 21st Century, McVey learns that his score was apparently beaten just months later by an overseas player named Enrico Zanetti...

SINCE last year, added Astron Belt, Galaxy Ranger, Tailgunner, dedicated Wild Gunman, Sea Raider, Stunt Pilot, Tapper, Ninja Warriors, Dig Dug, TRON, Frogger, Vanguard, Liberator, Starship 1, Star Trek TOS upright, Guwange, Death Race, In the Hunt, , Turkey Shoot, and a bunch more I'm forgetting. Our total should rise from 78 last year to over 100 this year (including 8 pins I believe). Most of the Rogue Synapse homebrews will be there including STARFIGHTER (the TOS sim will not be there this year as it's being built into it's final enormous cabinet). There are customs/skins as well including Splatterhouse, Evil Dead pin, Guwange, Wild Gunman, and Ultraman.

The contests this year include Galaga. The high score for the weekend WALKS AWAY with a cabaret GALAGA (60-in-1). Awesome little machine recently shopped out. THAT'S RIGHT, THE HIGH SCORE WILL WIN A 60-IN-ONE CABARET SKINNED AS GALAGA. Was tempted to add the little guy to my collection when completed . . .

JOHN NEWCOMER will be there speaking and will oversee a head-to-head Joust competition, perhaps challenging the victor to a game. Pretty damn cool! We will have (hopefully) 2 tournament upright Jousts, Joust cocktail, Joust 2 and Joust pinball. That makes 5 titles of his there (Joust, Joust 2, Sinistar, Turkey Shoot, and Narc).THAT'S RIGHT, YOU MAY GET A CHANCE TO PLAY JOHN NEWCOMER AT JOUST OR WIN A SIGNED JOUST ARCADE POSTER.

Tons of console stuff, board games, vendors, and cosplay as well.

Here is a link to a walkthru from last year. Most all the games shown will be there (a few have gone down this week and are problematic, Black Tiger will not be back as this was last years prize).

Come find us in the arcade if you get a chance to drop by the expo. Many of the attendees are console crowd so we'd love to add more arcaders to the mix.

There are two upcoming gaming conventions you may want to go check out. In Georgia, the Southern Friend Gaming Expo is this weekend, June 10th - June 12th.

"The Southern-Fried Gameroom Expo features more than 250 arcade, pinball and console machines, the third annual Southern-Fried Pinball Tournament, tabletop gaming, a vendor expo, exciting programs and guest speakers, movie screenings, and other special events."

Then the following weekend, the Let's Play Gaming Expo takes place in Plano, TX on June 18th and June 19th with a special guest!

"An Interactive Video Game Convention with Vendors, Arcades, Tournaments and much more! LPGE is packed with tournaments this year, including an epic survival tournament on the classic arcade game Joust. Competitors will face off against each other on the hardest setting and with no extra lives. The eventual winner will then compete against John Newcomer – the creator of the game – head-to-head!